Dark Matter is not about the mystical astronomic entity needed to make the equations describing the behavior of the universe work out. Invisible and until now impossible to detect it might just be a phantom of science. Instead the piece is about a sounding “matter” that we normally can’t hear but that surrounds us wherever there are any kind of electric devices. Microwave ovens, cellphones, computers, lightbulbs, and the like all emit electromagnetic fields of energy. These fields can be measured, recorded and made audible using special sensing devices. The majority of the sounds in the piece are recordings of these “invisible” sounds. As there is maybe dark matter alongside the matter that we can see and measure, so is there also sounds of electric phenomena that we can normally hear in the piece. However just as the dark matter of the universe is way much more common than visible matter in the universe, so the inaudible “dark” matter of electromagnetic fields make up some 90% of the piece. Dark Matter lets the listener walk through these fields and hear them as they would sound if they were not dark.

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Dark Matter was realized in 2018 at the composer’s studio in Gothenburg (Sweden) and premiered on April 7, 2018 during the Dias de Música Electroacústica 60 festival in the Auditório of the Casa Municipal da Cultura in Seia (Portugal). Dark Matter was commissioned by Dias de Música Electroacústica (DME).

Premiere

• April 7, 2018, Dias de Música Electroacústica 60: Åke Parmerud — Concerto monográfico, Auditório — Casa Municipal da Cultura, Seia (Portugal)